Indian Admiralty Act, 2017 – Judicial Interpretation

In an attempt to modernize Indian admiralty law and align it with the Arrest Conventions, parliament enacted the Admiralty (Jurisdiction and Settlement of Maritime Claims) Act, 2017 ("Act"). The Act came into force recently on 1 April 2018. The Act is well intentioned but has many errors and omissions. Several provisions of the Act depart from the Arrest Conventions without any discernible reason, causing one to question whether the draftsman properly understood the subject and correctly identified India's needs as a receiver of cargo shipped aboard foreign bottoms. The baton has therefore passed on to the courts to interpret and make what they can of the Act.

The Bombay High Court in a recent judgement viz, Siem Offshore Redri AS v. Altus Uber decided on 25 September 2018, despite being faced with the unenviable task of interpreting legislation that was not happily enacted, adopted a commercially pragmatic and progressive approach to arrest of ships in India. The